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Wednesday, 31 August 2016

I'm am here today to announce the winners of our Flowers Theme Challenge. So many beautiful entries this time and the team and I had a hard time picking the winner! Thank you to everyone who joined in.Firstly we have our overall winner chosen by the DT:

Congratulations Regina! Please email me at bev@uniko.co.uk by Tuesday 13th August along with your postal address and I will get your prize on it's way to you!

One more photo before I go, this was from yesterday at the beach with daddy...

Before I go, you will be pleased to hear that I have been busy behind the scenes too, getting the next stamp release organised (October 1st) and restocking the dies for Pure Florals: Chrysanthemum, Pure Florals: Gerbera and Beautiful Blooms I. I will be sending out an newsletter in due course once I have a confirmed dispatch date for the dies with more info.

Apologies for things being out of the norm here and a serious lack of creative inspiration. Once playgroups are back on again and our 'normal' daily/weekly routine resumes, so will my work routine and the release schedule!

Thursday, 25 August 2016

This month over at CAS Colours & Sketches we have had LOTS of fun challenges with each design team member taking it in turns to host. This is the last week of August and this week Patricia is our hostess.

It's sketch week and Patricia has this sketch HERE and seen below for you to try...

Argh, a oval...haha! My nightmare shape right now as I still don't any oval dies! Don't worry though as Patricia don't mind if you substitute the oval for a similar elongated shape, as long as the corners are NOT 90° - phew!

So this is what I came up with...

I wanted to do something a little different instead of simply layering card stock to create the rectangle/border effect of the sketch, so I did some masking and and stamping to achieve the look required.

I couldn't decide on a colour scheme either so in those circumstances, monochrome is the way to go! I had Beautiful Blooms II still on my desk from a previous card, so it got some more inky love ;)

I also decided to stamp the bloom so it overhung the Papertrey Ink mat Stack die cut. The whole card could have gone wrong at this point, as then I decided to stamp the bloom again on the base card to make the bloom whole, but add interest too, *luckily* it came out just right! I so NEED to invest in a MISTI, to overcome this stamping hurdles with ease ;)

Ok, that's all from me today! I hope I have inspired you to give the sketch a go and join in on the challenge this week. Be sure to stop on over HERE and check out what the rest of the CAS Colours & Sketches DT have done using the colours and I hope to see you in the gallery.

Monday, 22 August 2016

It's another of those posts that I find hard to write and put all my feelings into. It is with sadness that we at Uniko are saying farewell to our longest standing Design Team member Nicki Scheck from Creativity Lives Here.

Nicki has been a member of the Uniko DT since October 2012! For nearly 4 years I have had the honour and pleasure of having Nicki as part of the Uniko family. Seeing the inspiration and creativity flow when Nicki works her magic with Uniko products is simply amazing. Plus I have been able to see her beautiful twin boys grow, giving me confidence, support and courage that 'life' is possible with twins!

A HUGE thank you will never be enough to resonate my gratitude for all that Nicki has done for me and Uniko, she has truly been an inspiration to me and I am sure to all the Uniko customers old and new alike.

So, I couldn't let Nicki leave without giving her a little farewell send off and making a card. I love Nicki's card making style, stylish, colourful and CAS. Her eye for design and composition is impeccable and I especially love how Nicki combines florals and geometrics with ease. So with that in mind this is the card I came up with...

When I saw the current CAS(E) this Sketch! layout seen HERE and below, I immediately thought of a combination of geometrics and florals - a perfect 'Nicki' card so I gave it ago.

I also gave my ink blending a little more practice, Nicki's use of colour and blending colours is always flawless and inspiring, I hope I have done it justice for Nicki. I kept the bloom from Beautiful Blooms II (back in stock soon) black and white in contrast to the colourful panel. I did add a little Wink Of Stella to the white parts of the bloom and leaves for an added oomph!

That's all from me, but before I go, I thought I would leave you with a few of my favourite Nicki creations...

What an amazing snippet of Nicki's talent and inspiration using Uniko, don't you think?

THANK YOU Nicki for everything! You had been a blessing to Uniko and you WILL be truly missed by us all.

Thursday, 18 August 2016

It's a new month over at CAS Colours & Sketches with LOTS of fun challenges in store. As it is the summer months we are taking it in turns to be a hostess for the week. This week our hostess is the lovely Louise.

Louise has come up with this lovely colour combo HERE and seen below for you to try...

This one had me stumped for a little while, I don't know if it was my creativity or the colours. Anyway, I decided to break out some Christmas themed stamps to try and get me in the mood for the upcoming season. Quite hard after a trip to the seaside and full on sunshine this week ;)

This is what I came up with...

I only have the new SU! In Colours in card stock, so I needed a way to incorporate at least one of the colours that way! I matched Flirty Flamingo as closely as possible to Regal Rose ink to stamp the snowflakes from Stunning Snowflakes.

Ok, that's all from me for now, I hope I have inspired you to give these colours a go and join in on the challenge this week. Be sure to stop on over HERE and check out what the rest of the CAS Colours & Sketches DT have done using the colours and I hope to see you in the gallery.

Thursday, 11 August 2016

This month over at CAS Colours & Sketches we have LOTS of fun challenges in store. As it is the summer months we are taking it in turns to be a hostess for the week. This week is my turn to be hostess.

It's sketch week, so I have created this sketch HERE and seen below for you to try...

Even though I had tons of ideas when I created the sketch, I kinda stumped myself when it came to creating my card! Anyway, this is what I came up with...

I kept to the sketch and as Pure Florals: Cosmos doesn't seem to leave my desk at the moment it got inked up again!

I stamped the flower onto a die cut tag with the top trimmed off onto Whisper White CS using VersaFine Onyx black ink. I then coloured the petals in using my Prismacolor pencils, blending two shades of aqua using Gamsol.

My colour choice was inspired by the current ColourQ challenge colours seen HERE and below. I couldn't resist as it is a fabulous colour combo!

Ok, that's all from me today! I hope I have inspired you to give the sketch a go and join in on the challenge this week. Be sure to stop on over HERE and check out what the rest of the CAS Colours & Sketches DT have done using the colours and I hope to see you in the gallery.

With the summer holidays in full swing here in the UK and as I spend time with my beans and family you might have guessed with no sneak peeks that there is no new release this month. So instead we have another Design Team Blog Hop & GIVEAWAY instead!

As we've quite a few new followers here, ("Hello & Thank you") I will explain what's going on! Here at Uniko I *USUALLY* only release new products every other month. This is for a number of reasons, firstly, being an avid paper crafter myself and knowing the current economic climate I know 'some' are on a limited budget when it comes to buying new stash, so this way you're not tempted to splurge too much every month.

The second reason is that it is just me here at Uniko HQ. I currently run this little business single handedly, designing, blogging, demoing, classes, packing. Alongside that I am a full time mum to 23 month old twin boys. So releasing every other month gives me chance to keep my head above water, well...just about!

So, on the in-between release months the Design Team & I take a look back at a previously released product, dust it off and give it some love.

This month I decided upon the Pure Florals: Chrysanthemum clear stamp set, probably due to the lovely summer blooms that I am seeing on my days out and time in the garden!

As usual I like to show a couple of older favourite creations using this set. More examples can be found HERE over on Pinterest.

I also recently featured this set HERE as Stamp Of The Week and these are a few of the newer creations I have made using it...

How about some fresh new inspiration using this set? Plus, it wouldn't be a blog hop without a GIVEAWAY right?

Simply comment along the hop to be in the chance of winning this featured set. Or if you win and already own the set an eGift certificate for £15 will be awarded. You have until midnight Sunday 21st August 2016 to comment and the winner will be announced on Monday 22nd August 2016.